Eliyahu Gurfinkel, The Ann Arbor NewsMembers of the Grace Fellowship Church in Ypsilanti planted a vegetable garden with the intention of donating half of the produce to the Food Gatherers of Ann Arbor. From left are William Anderson, Joe Little and his daughter Cyntina Grantham, James Powell, Debbie McCray, Rose Williams, Angela and Andrew Robinson and their daughters, Adairah, 12, and Tangee, 16.

Andrew Robinson and some other congregation members at Grace Fellowship Church in Ypsilanti put some real muscle and a lot of good will into creating a garden this spring.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

• Faith and Food is not recruiting more congregations for gardens this year. However, to inquire about next year:

On a piece of church-owned land on Mott Road in Ypsilanti Township they dug a 1.5-foot deep trench by hand all the way around a 30-foot by 30-foot area. They installed a fence in the trench, laid cardboard over the whole enclosed surface and covered it with three truck loads of compost, which became the planting bed.

When the harvest starts coming, half of the food will go to Food Gatherers of Ann Arbor to help feed low-income people and the other half will be distributed among Grace Fellowship church members.
"We are glad that we can be part of something so worthwhile," Robinson said.

Another four congregations are donating from members' private gardens. Five of the participating churches are in Ypsilanti.

Merilynne Rush, who coordinates the program for Growing Hope and recruited churches to participate, said the goal is to create a fast, smart, sustainable way to give low income people access to healthy, locally grown food. The project has been embraced because many people like to garden, she said.

"People caught onto this idea very quickly," Rush said.

The program specifies which foods the gardeners grow, based on Food Gatherers' needs. Examples are foods with long shelf lives, such as carrots or potatoes; peas, because they are harvested early; and collard greens, because they aren't routinely donated, Rush said.

Eileen Spring, president and CEO of Food Gatherers, said that Faith and Food is part of an overall effort by Food Gatherers - including by starting its own garden - to secure a more predictable and consistent supply of good, healthy food.

"It is one of our goals to get more food quickly in response to rising needs," Spring said.

Faith and Food is backed in part by a $92,000 grant from the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation to Food Gatherers for a program called The Big Community Harvest. Food and Faith is one part of that four-pronged program.

Some of the grant money is being used to re-imburse the participants for materials, such as the fence that went around Grace Fellowship's garden.

Other materials are donated by the church members. For instance, the compost used for the Grace Fellowship garden came from portions allotted to some congregation members from the Ypsilanti Township compost yard.

The project is one that requires a lot of follow-through, including plans for weeding, watering and harvesting, Rush said. In the case of Grace Fellowship's garden, Growing Hope was able to provide rain barrels to catch rain for watering since the garden is not near a water supply, Robinson said.

The project plans tours of the gardens July 22 and Aug. 1, Rush said.
The program is not accepting any more new gardens this year, but welcomes inquiries for next year, Rush said.

John Mulcahy can be reached at jmulcahy@annarbornews.com or 734-994-6858.